


Epilogue in Oxford

by paradigmfinch



Series: Out and Loud [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Love Confessions, M/M, Unilock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-09
Updated: 2017-03-09
Packaged: 2018-10-01 09:15:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10185974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paradigmfinch/pseuds/paradigmfinch
Summary: Sherlock and John's first night in Oxford after all the excitement of the previous fall.Before they can really settle in, Sherlock has to clear something up with his boyfriend.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is unrepentant fluff. It was inspired by a comment from StarlightAndFireflies which pointed out something I had neglected to include in the main work of this series...

_I have to tell him tonight,_ Sherlock thinks.

He checks the time. John’s class will finish in half an hour. He taps a message out on his mobile and sends it before he can obsess over it.

_Dinner? SH_

The response is immediate, several beeps in sequence as John writes out each message. John must have already had his phone out when Sherlock’s message sent. He’s certainly living the authentic university experience if he’s already texting in class.

_yes!_

_come to mine. will be done with classes for the day soon. meet you at mine round 7?_

_just show security your id and they’ll let you in_

_i miss you_

Sherlock smiles down at his phone. He can’t help it, despite the nerves fluttering through his stomach.

John’s last text settles the resolve in Sherlock’s shoulders more solidly. Straightening, he tucks away his mobile and heads out to pick up their dinner. He stops by the corner store and picks up a few other items as well. Candles, fresh flowers, red wine, a box of matches. In short: the top hits when Sherlock had searched the internet for “romantic date night,” “romantic night in,” and “romantic gestures.” If John can write him a love song, then surely Sherlock can pull together a nice dinner for the two of them.

Upon seeing the clichéd contents of the basket (and the bottle of lubricant Sherlock had impulsively included), the checkout girl raises an eyebrow at him as she rings up his order.

“Big night?” she asks with a smirk.

Sherlock scowls at her and pays, refusing to acknowledge the blush coloring his cheeks. If this girl can recognize it, then at least John won’t mistake the gesture for what it is.

When he finally makes it to John’s building, he is laden with steaming bags of the best Italian food that Oxford has to offer. It’s no Angelo’s, but it will just have to do. The man at the security desk hands Sherlock an envelope with a key in it when he manages to shuffle the bags enough to extract his identification. When he lets himself into John’s flat, Sherlock is bewildered by the sight that greets him.

The flat looks... vacant. The walls are bare, there’s no furniture, only a few stacks of boxes laying around. After poking through the kitchen and bedroom areas to find them similarly bare, Sherlock takes out his mobile again to text his boyfriend.

_John I think you’ve been robbed._

_what are you talking about?_

Sherlock takes a picture of the empty living room and texts it to John without a caption.

_oh right. furniture delivery was delayed. we can go out instead_

Sherlock rolls his eyes at his boyfriend. They’ve spent the past two weeks at Sherlock’s parents’ house and between his mother’s interference and his father’s obliviousness, they haven’t had any privacy in weeks. Sherlock isn’t going to let a lack of sofa be the reason not to have a night alone with John. 

Hands on his hips as he looks around the room, Sherlock decides he’ll just have to be a little creative tonight. Resolved to make the best of this, he starts pulling open boxes and setting the scene. When he’s done, several duvets and every pillow he can find are stacked to make a comfortable cushioned space in the middle of the empty room, and the large window overlooking Oxford is lined with lit candles. He thinks about plucking apart the flowers he bought and spreading the petals, but decides that’s too much.

He’s in the kitchen, unpacking plates and looking for wine glasses when he hears shuffling in the hall and John’s key in the door.

“Hello!” calls John cheerfully as he enters through the kitchen, shaking droplets of water from his blond hair and pulling off his coat to hang besides Sherlock’s. The sight strikes Sherlock as perfectly domestic, so he plays along and asks “How was your day love?” as he continues rifling through boxes.

‘Brilliant! University is _brilliant_.” John starts to dig flyers and crumpled papers out of his pockets, smiling as he shows them to Sherlock. “I was invited to fourteen parties, I joined Mike Stamford’s pick-up rugby league _and_ about six other clubs. And I met some blokes who said they were in line for the throne. They were jerks, but still. Royalty!”

With a wide grin still in place, John toes off his shoes and walks around the counter to grasp Sherlock around the waist, gently twisting him away from the counter. He tips his head up and Sherlock obliges his boyfriend with a soft kiss. He jumps slightly when he feels John dip his hands into the back pockets on Sherlock’s jeans and John giggles against his chin. He is in an exceptionally good mood. (Good. That can only help Sherlock’s desire to give him a memorable evening). Sherlock’s nerves melt away as he rubs his hands down John’s lower back, nuzzles at his temple with a smile.

“Nobody cares about those buffoons. You’re the real royalty on campus this semester. I know, Irene forwarded me an article in the school paper that said so.” Irene had enrolled in Oxford the moment she heard that John was disappearing on her for the Spring. Apparently Oxford's standards were falling these days. All you had to do was be an international popstar, or seduce a recruiter, and they let you in. 

John rolls his eyes. “Whatever. How was _your_ first day back?”

“Dull. But looking up. I have plans for us tonight.” Sherlock wiggles around in John's grasp to continue looking through the dishes.

John hums, holding Sherlock’s waist and peering briefly around him to look at their dinner. “And those plans smell delicious.” He begins nosing at Sherlock’s neck, seemingly not very interested in the food at all. Sherlock shivers as John's lips trace along his nape.

“Do you have wine glasses?” he manages to breathe, trying in vain not to be distracted by John’s attentions.

John extracts himself from Sherlock with a less-than promising sounding “Umm…”

“Nevermind,” Sherlock announces. “You don’t even currently have a bed. We’ll make do with these.” Sherlock pushes a pair of mismatched mugs into John’s hand and takes a stack of dishware of his own, bottle of wine tucked under one arm. “Come on, take that bag and let’s go.”

“Go?” John asks curiously even as he does as Sherlock says and follows him into the sitting room. Sherlock leads him in backwards so that he can see John’s reaction to the space.

He watches John blink in surprise as he takes it all in: the pillows and duvets piled neatly to create a soft cocoon, the flickering candles reflecting against the glass of the window, the soft view of Oxford as the sun has just set. John’s expression cracks into a pleased smile. “What’s all this for?” he asks softly.

Sherlock busies himself with setting out the dishes, embarrassed in the face of John’s tender smile. He clears his throat, “Well, my boyfriend is an internationally beloved millionaire without any furniture so I had to do what I could to make this a romantic evening regardless.”

John doesn’t let the subject go, even has he joins Sherlock to help set their picnic up.

“I _meant_ , what’s the occasion?”

Feeling an uptick in his heart-rate, Sherlock licks his lips. “Oh, just, celebrating your first night in Oxford,” he lies. _Just because I’m telling him tonight doesn’t mean I have to tell him right this moment._ He busies himself setting out plates and digging through the bag of takeaway containers while John uncorks the wine and pours them each a glass. Well, mug.

Sherlock drinks the first cup of wine quickly as his nerves get the better of him, asking John more about his classes and professors. Before long, they’re both giggling over spaghetti, Sherlock with a flush of wine in his cheeks.

“You seriously joined the LGBT club? You’re going to end up their mascot.”

“Oi! I’d like to see you turn down the combined force of Irene Adler _and_ Molly Hooper.”

Sherlock tilts his head in assent to John at that. “Fair. Not surprising that Irene has already joined either, I suppose.”

“She’s already vice president.”

“You’re kidding!” Sherlock giggles, knowing that John isn’t.

John nods seriously. “And Molly’s the treasurer. You should see the two of them together, getting along like a house on fire. They’d known each other an hour and I could already tell they’re going to end up best friends for life, or in bed by the end of the week. Or maybe both.”

Sherlock snorts, shaking his head into his food as he imagines all too easily what a formidable couple the two women would make.

Silence settles comfortably between them, and John puts down his wine and folds his hands in his lap, leaning toward Sherlock.

“So. What’s all this really about, then?”

“Hm?” Sherlock asks, trying to play dumb as a bolt of panic slices through him.

John rolls his eyes. (Sherlock never was very good at playing dumb). “C’mon, Sherlock. The wine, the candles, the flowers? Don’t get me wrong, it’s all lovely, but did I forget something? An anniversary? We’ve only been officially dating a little while but I’m pretty sure we met on the 29th of the month and first got together on the 12th, and today is the 17th.”

Sherlock softens at yet more evidence of what a romantic John is. This is exactly why he had come up with tonight’s impromptu picnic. Resolve to make this moment special burning in his gut, Sherlock sets aside his plate and moves in closer to John (not that there had been much distance between them before).

“Actually, I wanted to talk to you about something.” Sherlock dares to glance up at John and sees his starlted expression at the seriousness of Sherlock’s tone. Sherlock takes a deep breath and fights to maintain eye contact. “Do you remember when we were in Miami? You picked me up from the airport, and-“ Sherlock cuts off his speech at the sound of John’s phone ringing.

“Ignore it,” John tells him.

“But-“

“It’s fine, I can call them back. What were you about to say?” John asks, looking earnestly into Sherlock’s eyes. Sherlock waits for the phone to stop ringing before gathering his thoughts to begin again.

“When we were in Miami-“ Sherlock jumps and cuts off his speech again as _his_ phone begins to buzz in his trousers.

“Oh, for-“ Sherlock cries, taking out his phone and checking the caller ID.

_< 3 Victor Trevor_

“It’s Victor,” Sherlock tells John, bewildered. He looks up to see John checking his own missed calls. “Mine too,” he replies, showing Sherlock the display.

Bemused, Sherlock answers the phone and puts in on speakerphone.

“ _Sheerrrrrlock!_ Is Johnny with you? Put me on speakerphone! Wait! Do you have Facetime?” Victor’s excited voice slurs through the speaker as Sherlock switches on the video feed on and exchanges another confused look with John.

“Hi Victor,” John begins, moving in close to Sherlock so they’re both in frame. “We’re both here. What’s going on?”

“Yes, we’re kind of in the middle of-“ Sherlock starts.

“I’m engaged!”

For once Sherlock isn’t annoyed to be interrupted.

“…what?” he asks.

“To who?” John adds. “I didn’t know you were seeing anybody.”

Victor’s grin is huge as he flaps a hand at the phone. “We only made it official, like, a month ago. But James and I have known each other for years and since we finally got together we didn’t want to wait.”

“James,” John chokes out. “as in _Sholto_?”

“Yesss,” Victor slurs, his tone conveying _‘duh’_.

“Oh.” John replies, and clears his throat. “Do you know that he and I were – that we used to – ?” Sherlock observes his boyfriend carefully as he fails to make it to the end of a sentence. He’s heard enough about James Sholto from John and Irene to know that there were some intense feelings there for a time, and heartbreak on both sides when things ended.

“Yeah I know about you two,” Victor rolls his eyes. “We had a huge fight over it but that was like, two weeks ago.”

“…Okay.” John seems at a loss for how to continue and Sherlock doesn’t have any ideas either. Victor’s face lights up and there’s a dramatic spinning of the image on Sherlock’s phone before it settles into looking straight up at the ceiling as they hear some shuffling on the other end of the line. Victor’s voice rings through clearly, “Jamie! You’re back!”

Then the pleasingly low rumble of James Sholto’s voice joins the conversation. “Back from the car, yes. I was only gone a moment. Who are you talking to, love?”

“It’s John and Sherlock!” Victor says brightly, and then the image is spinning again as Victor gathers his phone and points it directly at a casually dressed James, who takes the phone and peers closely into it.

“Oh. Hi, John. It’s been a while,” he begins awkwardly. He seems remarkably sober in comparison to his fiancé. “And hello, Sherlock. I recognize you from. Everything.”

“Hey,” Sherlock manages to nod back. God, this is terrible and awkward.

James seems to agree as he clears his throat and looks away from the camera. “Now isn’t the best time, but we should all catch up soon. At the moment, I should probably be getting my wayward, drunken love into bed.” James’ figure settles in next to Victor, who rests his forehead on the man’s bicep as he leans back into frame.

“ _Jamie!_ ” Victor purrs. “Not while we’re on the phone.”

The tension breaks as John and Sherlock share a laugh with James. “Sorry about Victor, he had a bit to drink after we told his parents about us. I took my eyes off of him for five minutes and he’s totally smashed.” On the screen, James rolls his eyes, but Sherlock can see the fondness writ across his features.

John nods. “That’s fine, we have our own plans on this end. Maybe we’ll talk soon?”

“Sure,” James answers. “We’re planning the wedding for the summer. You two should both come.”

John is opening his mouth to reply when Victor starts to speak, nuzzling into James’ neck as he does so. “ _I said_  we fly to Tahiti and elope but my Jamie wanted a real ceremony with his sisters there and all. And I can’t help but give him anything he wants.” James chuckles as he strokes a hand through Victor’s hair.

“Babe, if you talk like that, they’re going to think you’re my sugar daddy.”

Sherlock and John exchange a grin at this as Victor and James continue to banter. When eventually Victor passes out and James ends the call to take him to bed, Sherlock and John are left blinking at each other disbelievingly.

“Well.” John clears his throat. “Did you ever think that was going to happen?”

“Nope.” The tension breaks as they make eye contact and start to giggle.

“So,” John starts. “What was it you were going to say before they called?”

“Right.” Yes. This again. Sherlock takes a deep breath as he gathers the words he’d been mentally rehearsing all day. “I was talking about Miami. Um. Do you remember, when we were at the airport-”

“Yes?” John asks when Sherlock hesitates, leaning in attentively.

“And…there was that young girl. Annie. And she, she asked you-“ Sherlock takes a deep breath, emboldened by John’s encouraging expression to continue. “She asked you if you lov-“

_Brrrring!_

John groans, and Sherlock drops his head into his hands.

He doesn’t even have time to say, “good Lord what now?” before his own phone is also ringing.

They exchange a disbelieving look as they each check their respective phones. John sighs and tells him, “I’ve got Mrs. Hudson. You?”

“Molly,” Sherlock answers, scowling at his phone. He rises and tells John, “I have a feeling we won’t be left alone if we don’t take these. I’ll be just a minute.”

Sherlock accepts the call as he takes his phone into the kitchen. He hisses into the line, _“What?”_

“What’s got a bee in your bonnet?” replies Molly’s amused voice.

“I’m having dinner with John. A _romantic_ dinner.”

“Oh. Well, I was calling to ask how your chem lab went, but I guess it can wait for another time.” Sherlock can hear the hurt in her tone, and sighs feeling guilty.

“No, wait. I’m sorry.” Sherlock bites his lip and peeks around the kitchen doorway to see John still deep in discussion with Mrs. Hudson. “I was trying to tell John tonight that…that I love him. But I’ve never done anything like this before, and you know I’m terrible with sentiment.”

“Oh, Sherlock. Just say it, he loves you too.”

Sherlock groans, tugging lightly at his hair in frustration, even as he feels a thrill at her words. “But he’s always _so romantic_ , about everything. He’s literally written love songs for me, sung them to millions of people. I can’t ‘just say it,’ I have to do something special. I set up romantic dinner tonight, and it was going well. But now, every time I try to tell him _we get interrupted_.” He tells her pointedly.

“That comment will be directed at me, then?"

Sherlock is preparing a retort when he hears another voice croon through the phone, “ _Who are you talking to, Miss Hooper? Come back to bed.”_

Sherlock gasps. “Molly Hooper! Do not tell me you called me to talk about my chem lab when you have Irene Adler in your bed?”

“Fine!” Molly snaps. “I called to gossip and get the dirt on Irene." Sherlock hears the woman's noises of indignation vaguely in the background. He's tempted to continue ribbing his friend for a while when she snaps, "But don’t you have a love confession to get back to or something?”

Another peek through the doorway reveals John is finishing his own conversation.

“Call me tomorrow to tell me how it goes.”

“I _might_ text you. If you’re lucky and I don’t have anything better to do.”

“Sherlock Holmes, you had _better_ be – " Sherlock ends the call with a smirk and definitively _silences_ it.

As he starts through the doorway into the living area, John is shutting off his phone. Sherlock takes in the sight of candles burning down to nothing, their meal half eaten, and feels suddenly exhausted by this charade.

He steps onto the duvet beside John and wordlessly collapses onto his back, throwing a forearm over his eyes with an enormous sigh.

John, not taking his dramatics seriously in the least, chuckles, and Sherlock feels his body shift beside him.

“What is it, love?” John murmurs. _Love._ There’s that word, again. What all this was meant to be about. When Sherlock dares to peek out from behind his arm, he sees that John has settled down along his side, propped up on a hand to look down at him. His eyes are blue and intense, flickering across his face worriedly. Sherlock hides again, as he takes a deep breath and begins to rapidly deliver the speech he had planned.

“When I flew from London to Miami and that young girl named Annie asked if you loved me you said that you did but then we never talked about it after and there was the tour and it was New Year’s then my parents were around all the time and we were packing and I thought since we were finally alone together and in Oxford that we could talk about it but then I wanted it to be romantic and people kept _calling_ and being engaged and not realizing they were _ruining things_ and Irene was in Molly’s bed but the point is that I wanted it to be special when I told you that I,” Sherlock takes a big breath, and exhales most of it with his next words. “Love you. Too.”

His heart is beating quickly and he’s sure his face is crimson from how hot it feels. When John doesn’t say anything straight away, Sherlock risks another peek from behind his arm, lowering it fully when he sees John’s shocked expression.

“John?” he asks after another long moment of silence, growing unsure.

John blinks, his brow furrowing “You love me? That's what this was about?”

Sherlock lifts a hand to his hot face, embarrassed. “Yes,” he mutters.

“Sherlock!” John shouts as he smacks him with a pillow.

“What?” Sherlock cries, bewildered by this turn of events. He pulls himself up to sitting to better face the glower on John’s face.

“That was a month ago! I’ve been waiting for you to say something for _weeks_.” John hits him with the pillow again when Sherlock lets out a relieved laugh. “It’s not funny! When you didn’t say anything, I figured you thought I was going too fast and you didn’t like it. I’ve been losing sleep! Stop laughing!” John takes the pillow and uses it to tackle Sherlock to the floor. With a grin on his face and John Watson pinning him down, Sherlock cranes his neck up to land quick kisses on his boyfriend’s lips until he stops scowling and mumbling curses and starts to kiss him back. “Prat,” John mumbles between reluctant kisses. “I half thought you would break up with me.”

Sherlock feels his expression soften. “Of course, I wasn’t. _I love you_. I’ve always been in love with you.”

John pulls back from him at that, eyes scanning carefully over Sherlock’s features.

“Always?” An edge of tight frustration creeps into John’s tone as he continues, “As in…you’ve always loved me, or you've always loved ‘John Watson’?”

Sherlock sits up fully as he feels this conversation take a serious turn. Flicking his gaze between John’s eyes, Sherlock deduces that John’s insecurity is rearing its ugly head. Somehow John is the only man in the world whose ego is _diminished_ by mass fame and international love. He takes John’s hand quickly, ignoring the flinch John makes at the touch.

“That’s not how I meant it.” Sherlock thinks back to a time when he didn’t have John in arm’s reach, when he and Harry Watson were just faces on the television, voices on the radio. “Listen. You already know I was a fan before I met you. When I was young and awkward and had no friends, you were always so sweet and kind to your fans on telly. And then Molly and I became friends because of The Watsons. It’s like were always going to have a place in my heart.” John still looks guarded, but he hasn’t tried to pull away his hand again so Sherlock keeps talking.

“Then when I got – a bit _older_ ,” Sherlock clears his throat. “I couldn’t help but notice that aside from being kind and well-spoken, you were also very handsome all of a sudden. So maybe I loved you a bit then, too, because you made it very easy for me to figure out I was gay despite how repulsive I found all the boys at my school.”

John interrupts, “Sherlock, what are you-“

“But _that_ is when things got interesting,” Sherlock speaks over John’s words, determined to finish his thoughts. “Because pretty soon I got too old for it to be _cool_ to like The Watsons anymore. And you got away from your label and started dating around, acting like a prat and racking up DUIs.”

“Hang on, none of those were real!”

“I know that now, John.” Sherlock soothes. “But the point is that I wasn’t in love with John Watson anymore, because he was busy being a cock. I moved on from you. Right up until the moment your new label publicized an audition for ‘ _Tall dark-haired male dancer with knowledge of classical dance’_. And that audition was the day that I started to find out that all the bullshit in the press was just that. And I fell in love with you all over again.”

John looks at him through his lashes, and Sherlock can still see skepticism in his eyes.

“The real you.” Sherlock looks down at the hand he still has captured in his own and starts to lightly stroke it. “The very talented, absurdly romantic and sentimental, down-to-Earth, bloody _insecure_ man that you are.” He meets John’s eyes pointedly.

John gives him a weak smile. “Okay, yes. I overreacted. Can we try to salvage the moment, or is the evening ruined?”

Sherlock rolls his eyes. “I don’t know, John. Between the incessant phone calls intruding on our privacy and the distinct lack of furniture, this evening was really cracking up to being something special before you put your foot in it.”

Something mischievous glints in his boyfriend’s eyes, and Sherlock raises an eyebrow innocently as he climbs into Sherlock’s lap. John plants a slow, sweet kiss on his mouth that zings down to Sherlock’s toes with its intensity. “I think we may still be able to make the best of a bad situation. Don’t you?”

* * *

The sex is soft that night in a way it often isn’t between two randy young men. Fingers lace between Sherlock’s own, calluses brushing against his palms, and this contact somehow feels more intimate than anything else. After an age of gentle, unrelenting pleasure, Sherlock’s climax hits him like a tidal wave, spreading through his body afterwards until he’s limp and drowsy, and slurring his words. John wraps a spare blanket around him and tells him to sleep. He’s out like a light.

When he stirs awake next, it’s to a barely illuminated room and the sound of a pencil scratching on paper. Blinking away the sleep in his eyes, Sherlock turns over and finds John on his belly looking down at his lyrics notebook with his lower lip caught between his teeth. He looks sideways at Sherlock after a moment with a half-smile and a raised eyebrow.

“Had a nice nap, love?”

Sherlock refuses to blush. He’s always sleepy after a particularly intense round of love-making with John. “Yes,” he replies primly. “What are you writing?”

“Song.”

“About?”

“Us.”

“You mean me,” Sherlock teases. John knocks his shoulders lightly against Sherlock’s in rebuke. Sherlock hitches his blanket up so that it covers both of them and moves in closer to skim the words. “Is there a melody yet?”

John shakes his head. “That’s your job, now. You’re music, I’m lyrics.”

Sherlock hums thoughtfully, not ready to share with John how he thrills to hear those words. “It’s certainly not a dance number. Irene will be disappointed.”

“I could always forward her the lyrics to _Posh Boy_.” John smirks and Sherlock instantly reddens.

"Don't even joke! That’s _private_. And not fit for public consumption," he insists. He clears his throat and determinedly returns his attention to the notebook under John’s hand. “So it’s not a dance number, or a ‘ _bop_.’ It’ll have to be a ballad. Lyrics are too sentimental to be anything else. In fact, they look downright cheesy.”

John knocks his head playfully against Sherlock’s. “You love it.”

“Well, I love you.”

“And I love you, too.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you again to everyone for the amazing response I've gotten to this universe! 
> 
> I'm going to be taking a break from it while I work on another potterlock-flavored project (...and hopefully find a job for post-college). But I feel fairly sure that I'll be back to this 'verse someday.


End file.
